Title: Theory and Practice of Chinese and Foreign Museums

Presenter: Dr. Shen Chen

About him: Vice President Art and Culture and Senior Curator in Royal Ontario Museum.After receiving his BA from Wuhan University, China, Dr. Shen studied anthropological archaeology at Tulsa University, Oklahoma where he received his MA. Dr. Shen studied anthropological archaeology at Department of Anthropology University of Toronto for his PhD. Graduating in 1997 Dr. Shen joined the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), as the inaugural Bishop White Curator of Eastern Asian Archaeology, and since 2011serves as Vice President of Art and Culture.

As the Senior Curator of Chinese Art and Culture, Dr. Shen is responsible for managing and researching over 41,000 Chinese artifacts. The ROM preserves the largest collection of Chinese artifacts among North American museums, and the second outside China (next to the British Museum, London). Dr. Shen’s curatorial research focuses on making ancient Chinese objects relevant to our understanding of Chinese cultures in contemporary society.

As an archaeologist and scholar, Dr. Chen Shen has organized and participated in multiple archaeological digs in China, US, and Canada. He continues excavations at several sites in northern China, including field investigation at the World Heritage Zhoukoudian (Peking Man) site near Beijing. Dr. Shen began Canadian-Chinese collaborative fieldwork projects in Paleolithic archaeology in 1997. Over the past two decades, his team discovered and studied the earliest hominid occupation site in East Asia, dated 1.6 million years ago.

Schedule:

First lecture: The Chinese and Western Perspectives under the Exchange and Mutual Learning of Museums

Second lecture: The Construction of Museum Theory in Practical Exploration

Third lecture: Curator role in different contexts

Fourth lecture: Research perspective and public interpretation in the exhibition

Fifth lecture: Collection Research and Contemporary Museum Values

Time: May, 2021